Dreams of CD 145 Dome Embossed Brookfields

By Pat Scott

I have this propensity to keep every dome embossed Brookfield 145 I find. One of these
days, this may present a problem, but I can't let go of them. Look in the price guide and
you will find they are generally worth only a dollar or two. But what interests me is that
each one has it's own personality. Look and you will find no two alike. The wrinkles on
the domes are like fingerprints. Some are embossed so faintly they are hardly readable
while others boldly show the name and location of one of America's most prolific producers
of insulators.

But what is more interesting to me is their age, and putting that insulator into
perspective with the world around it. The other day, I found a spot where some poles were
pushed over, still attached to the wires. The poles are not 100 plus years old, but the
Brookfields on them certainly are. We can't be sure that the Brookfields I found were
original to that location, but we can be sure of their place in time. When the ones I
found were first put up into service, the automobile was still a futuristic dream, man had
never flown, and poles were set and carried to the site by hand. That very same insulator,
almost flawless after all these years, has finally been taken out of service by a project
to replace all the block signals along the railroad line. Its life spanned the time when
no one could fly, to when we fly to outer space. Where once the only way to drive was in a
horse and carriage, there is a road traveled by fast cars and big trucks.

I simply have to marvel at the grandeur of something so simple yet functional, whose
life starts by carrying the voices of people who may have never known an automobile, and
whose service life ended as a trusted guardian carrying the communications that allowed
state of the art, computer controlled, fancy schmancy BNSF SD70MAC locomotives flying by
at the once unfathomable speeds of 70 MPH. But, the story is not over. Now, this Brookie
will rest in a comfortable environment for a long time, having been rescued from the trip
to the junkyard. Who knows what that insulator will see a hundred years from now.